Early Halloween party - NOT amateur radio

Yesterday I mentioned that school starts again before Halloween, so an early party at Granny and Grampy was called for. We had this tonight along with silly games. They still love it, although we know these days will soon pass.

Rally

Saturday 27 OCTOBER : ESSEX CW ARC CW BOOT CAMP

3rd Witham Scout & Guide HQ, Rear of Spring Lodge Community Centre, Powers Hall End, Witham, Essex CM8 2HE. Doors open at 8.30am for registration and the event runs from 9am to 4.30pm. Parking is free. Entry £10 with free sausage rolls, drinks, cakes. Contact Andy, G0IBN 0745 342 6087 g0ibn1@yahoo.com.

A list of rallies can be found at http://rsgb.org/main/news/rallies/

10m FT8 again

After a night on 472kHz (630m) WSPR, I have again gone on 10m FT8 but no spots on RX or TX as yet.

UPDATE 1551z: No spots still.

Sunspots - Thursday October 25th 2018

Solar flux is 69 and the sunspot number zero. A=3 and K=0.

Now on 472kHz WSPR

All the DX on 10m seems to have stopped, so I have QSYed to 472kHz WSPR. All being well, I shall be on until breakfast (20% TX, 10mW ERP, earth-electrode "antenna"). As of now, just a couple of spots of me and none of others.

UPDATE 2107z:  5 unique spots of others with best DX IW4DXW (1190km).

All the grandchildren - NOT amateur radio

A photo showing all of our grandchildren.

Well nearly - NOT amateur radio

Halloween is next week when our grandchildren are back at school. So, tomorrow we are having an early Halloween party. Our granddaughter decided to try her hat today!

Solar cycle 25 start

"While smaller spots with the correct polarity alignment of cycle 25 regions have been observed at high latitude locations as early as 2016, this overview will only include spots large enough to have been visible at a 1K resolution. In the case of reversed polarity cycle 24 regions, those that are not at a sufficiently high latitude (ie. 30 degrees or more), are considered most likely to belong to cycle 24 and will not be included in this list until closer to the actual solar cycle minimum (likely to be sometime between August 2018 and February 2019)."

Notice the last few words. This was copied from http://www.solen.info/solar/cycle25_spots.html .

Bury St Edmunds earlier - NOT amateur radio

Earlier today, we went to Bury St Edmunds with 2 of our grandchildren. It was market day. Bury St Edmunds still has a very old fashioned East Anglian feel. Unlike Cambridge it is not filled with Far Eastern visitors with their selfie sticks. It feels "authentic".

The photo shows my wife with 2 of our 4 grandchildren.

Overnight on 472kHz WSPR

Last night was average. Although I spotted my best DX of the season on 472kHz WSPR RX , my own 10mW ERP was only spotted by 7 UK stations.

472kHz WSPR RX last night

472kHz WSPR TX last night